Tim leads us through a very funny warm-up which gets me chuckling – our first task is in Knee boxing – in pairs we must use our palms to hit our opponents knees – I am paired with Lowri who puts me to shame – she is a regular Muhammed Knoberly Knees, a Cassius Cartiledge– I'm not suggesting that her knees are really knobberly I use it purely for the pun.

Our next warm up game is to use our left index finger as a weapon to poke in the small of our opponents back. This time I'm paired with Tim who is a true Swash Backerler, A count of Monte Chiropractito and gets me several times – I think I would be a rubbish fighter.

Finally we must choose a character from the show and think of a sound and movement for that character this sound and movement is then repeated by all the remaining five in the circle who exaggerate and mutate as they go until the original sound and movement maker gets last say in doing the final exaggerated version. All the characters are taken so I choose The String Machine Thingy as my character and personify it as a knee and elbow spinning chugger.

Now thoroughly warmed up – rehearsals begin in the Dame Judi Studio at the Unicorn. All the props and set are in the performance space so the actors are asked to do a high charged, guerrilla, ham version of the show – it's not long before the characters are dancing their way across stage and finding all sorts of wonderful additions for the script.

After a manic and very very entertaining hammed version of the show the cast are asked to do a line run. Its a new experience hearing the show just read– especially at the start when both Lowri an Jumoke are reading over one another as they introduce some imaginary children into the space. Though they are restrained by their chairs there is no shortage of animation from the actors as they gesticulate and find new positions to pull their mouths into.

The weather is taking a hold as actor hold various flu and cold beating concoctions Jumoke has elixir de ginger – a water bottle with raw ginger in side!!! Yuck, Nick has a liquorice and marshmallow root tea! and Lowri has peach cordial! What a healthy bunch.

In the afternoon I become a child and am led thorough the show – the actors do a wonderful job in entertaining my naughty child. Things are coming together and I can't wait to see it in the space.

Later in the afternoon Max holds a music rehearsal where there are harmonies and melodies aplenty. Now sitting in The Unicorn as the light fades in the Judi Dench Studio it all feels suddenly very real. By the end of the week the adults acting as youngsters will be replaced by real bona fide children and all the set will be in place – we will have to decide homes for the Stringy Bridge, Ropey Boat and Windy Path and will have the full array of strings and pulleys that make up the set. - I can't wait.

Wondrous Bubbles

Bathing the babies in bubblesTaken from a mothers hot bathScented with lavender and rose oilTaken from hills where flowers outgrow the grassBubbles filled with song that never burstThat can tickle laughter from the cutest mouthsDry the softest eyesBubbles that squirt out of fingersSquash between toesFind dirt on the back of necksBehind earsRest in the small of backsFind prayers on palmsAnd falls on knees.

Tuesday, 2 December 2008

The show is coming together wonderfully, today we had loads of fun playing on The String Machine Thingy it is a wonderful heath Robinson-esque contraption that sings, and alights and chugs and woos, we experiment with timing to decide how best to get the kids on to the machine – it has pedals and handles and bells which the kids will operate during the show.

Lowri's Emergency services man is becoming increasing prophetic as she comes to the rescue of stringy and Ropey who need help to get the String Machine Thingy working again. She speaks every line as if revealing the deepest darkest secret of the universe and has no qualms with grabbing hold of Ropey and Stringy and pouring her welsh dialect into their ears so that they are clear on what has to be done to make the machine work.

On Monday the crew were in the studio with MD Max recording the songs from the show to be put on to CD – this morning we listen to Max's produced versions of the songs that sound brilliantly ethereal and surprisingly christmassy.

The rehearsal space is like a well tended garden in spring – new blossoms and buds revealed on each visit. Today red and blue rope spills off of a chair. The string mummy and daddy sit atop a chariot furnished with four curved standards tipped with balls of brown twine, but the biggest change – apart from the actors developing various coughs and snivels :-( is the string doggie. He – I think he's a he – is no longer a prototype puppet with black foam body – he is now a woofing, barking, arfing ball of brown yarn with a long loom of a nose and eyes! He only had white balls for eyes before resembling something out of a Tim Burton movie but now he has pupils and is far more becoming for them – he also has gorgeous little tufts of fluff of hair on his ears and on the antenna that shoots out the top of his/her head.

Poor Nik the musician is down to a barely audible whisper a he struggles with a cough -I hate coughs they are the most persistent of cold and flu symptoms, the most productive and zapping of morale. But Nik is a trooper and continues to play marvelously – but alas no singing today.

The squelchy mud song, that has the children miming traveling through disgusting sticky squelchy mud is rehearsed – there is something totally satisfying about watching four adults making exaggerated leg movements as they navigate an imagined quagmire.

By the afternoon String Mummy and String Daddy have also had their prototype forms replaced by puppet maker Mark Parrett. String Daddy was a colourless spool based puppet – today he is taller and wrapped in red and blue string like a Ropey superman. String Mummy is also bigger, her foam rotundness replaced with blue balls of string and fantastic sprigs of electric blue hair.

Stringy leads Tim into the rehearsal space following a red string taking him from Nik's Billy Cotton to the string machine thingy all the way to Ropey's big toe where the string ends. Ropey awakes using a hanging string summons his clothes to him from above.

Griff makes a great Ropey – especially at times of panic – when he runs from stage left to stage right stopping suddenly ad having his legs lift in comic inertia exaggerated style.

Monday, 1 December 2008

Well, we're in the last week of rehearsals so one way or another we will have to be ready for public performance by Saturday morning. Having said that I have no doubts we will be, and we are all looking forward to getting into the run.

I think the show has all the ingredients to be a hit with the 2 - 6 year old target audience (and accompanying adults) with good tunes, interesting characters, funny bits and above all a string dog. In fact I suspect we could just throw the dog into the audience and it would do the show to the audience's satisfaction.